


burn to ashes

by halcyondreams



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 07:42:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20888555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halcyondreams/pseuds/halcyondreams
Summary: The first thing that Gueira feels after he is reborn in flames is anger. The second thing he feels is that he is completely and utterly alone.





	burn to ashes

**Author's Note:**

> hope ya'll like a slow burn

The first thing that Gueira feels after he is reborn in flames is anger. The second thing he feels is that he is completely and utterly alone. 

Everyone has their own story about how they discovered that they could spew actual flames from their body. Most of them even think about it in terms of who they were before the fire. How they got to that point in their life. What caused them to finally lose control and to allow the fire to take over. Some of the other Burnish focused most of their energy on that -- on what kind of stressor actually caused the flames to erupt. A single point of stress that breaks a person and opens up an unclosing chasm of fire, yearning to burn everything down. Gueira didn't care about any of that. As time progressed, he forgot about his life before the fire less and less. His life before the urge to burn was inconsequential, aside from the fact that it had gotten him here, to this point. 

His hand flexes for a moment, as he emerges from the rubble of the building. The crackling of fire surrounds him and the heat engulfs him -- a hug, he never knew he craved. His clothes are intact, at least. The leather jacket, normally something that would cause him to sweat in this weather, felt just right. Even with the heat that grows and erupts behind him, those telltale flames of a Burnish taking down the second floor of the building. 

He should have cared to look if there are others in the building when it fell. 

He doesn't.

He barely remembers the feeling now, of the first fire. The way it felt when he burst, when everything inside of him was no longer inside of him, but outside of him. The first thing he remembers is the anger. The anger at -- the other person. He doesn’t remember the cause. It’s lost to time and memory at this point. It’s not like he wants to remember. From this point on, he thinks less and less about the life he had before the fire. 

But what comes next is -- loneliness. He has nothing. The fire has eaten everything. The only home he has ever known is currently engulfed in flames, the top floor slowly crumbling from the heat and pressure of the fire. The Burnish cannot live with any semblance of normalcy; he knows this from the history lessons about the Great World Fire that happened years ago. 

The only thing that he has left is the fire, the one that burns inside of him. The feeling of a bonfire, the heat and warmth of a mother’s hug, surrounding him from inside. Maybe he doesn’t need anything else. Maybe he is fine alone. 

Breaking through the crackling comes something less relaxing. Sirens. Even though Gueira is focused on the fire and how it looks and feels so unlike any fire he's ever encountered before, he can still see the red and blue lights swirling through the smoke. 

Yet, he finds he can't move. The fire is comforting, pleasing. He doesn't want it to go away. He doesn't want to leave it. This is his handiwork, after all, and it's providing him with a feeling unlike any other. 

He mildly realizes that he might be in shock. 

"We should go." 

The voice startles Gueira. For a moment, he's lost -- is he imagining it? He wouldn't put it past himself at this point. Because the voice appears to be coming from behind him, from the fires itself. And yet, when he turns around, there isn't just fire. There's a person. 

"Meis." 

His own voice surprises Gueira. It's cracked, as if it hadn't been used in a while, and fragile. It's thoroughly unlike him. "You were in there?"

Meis's hand slips over to Gueira's back for a moment and he presses his palm into the center of it, spurring Gueira to begin moving. Without even thinking about it, the redhead walks, trying not to think about the fact that the sirens are getting closer, or that the fire is getting further away from him. What he focuses on instead is the heat -- the fact that it hasn't left him, not yet. 

It's coming from Meis. 

"It's not a very good idea to stick around there," Meis remarks idly, his tanktop still just as clean as the day they got it. Gueira tries to think about the day for a moment, but he pushes it away. "Freeze Force might not be far behind." 

"Were there other people in there?" Gueira asks, and he realizes that he could probably go faster than this, if he wanted. They aren't moving very fast. But he remains at the same pace, so Meis's hand doesn't alight from his back. 

"They're safe for now." Meis gives a nod. "I managed to get them to a space that the Burning Rescue can get to easily. An exit strategy." There's a pause for a moment, and Gueira looks up at Meis. Their eyes lock for just a few moments. "He didn't make it." 

Gueira lets out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding. "Good. The asshole deserves to burn." His voice is stronger now, and as he speaks, he feels something inside of him. A heat. Like the first drink of hot chocolate after playing outside in the snow, it warms him from the inside, a heat he didn't realize he needed until it was there. 

"Come on. It looks like Burning Rescue has already arrived, and I don't have a particular interest in being arrested today," Meis remarks idly, as if they were talking about the weather. But Gueira looks back for a moment. 

"Why do we have to hide?" Gueira utters, but he knows the answer, without Meis saying anything. Freeze Force is why. But still, the question lingers in Gueira's head as they walk -- not run, but just walk down the darkened night streets until they can't hear the sounds of the sirens any more. And then they keep walking. Gueira has given up on figuring out where they're going. Meis's hand is still pressing into his lower back gently, and the heat that comes from there is unlike any heat he's ever felt in the past. Unlike any heat that he's generating inside of himself. 

It takes a few more twists down abandoned alleys, but they arrive in front of a building that seems to be in the middle of construction. The windows are glass-less and covered with tarps, and, as he looks up further and further, the walls vanish until there is nothing but beams and open sky. It's at this moment that he realizes that he can't see the moon tonight. A piece of him figures it's likely a cloudy night, but there is a piece of him that wonders if it might be smoke that is blocking out the sky. His smoke. He looks back over at Meis for a moment as they stand there, and finally, Meis reaches into his pocket with a spare hand and pulls out a set of keys. With that, he moves to unlock the door and spur Gueira in, all without removing that hand from his back. Gueira is mildly impressed with the feat, but he doesn't have much of a chance before he's whisked up several flights of stairs, to the sixth floor and into one of the rooms. 

At this point, Gueira can tell the building is meant to be apartments, and Meis easily slips into one of the open doorways which leads to one of the more completed apartments; there's a stove already installed, along with a toilet off to the side, and an inflatable mattress in the middle of what looked to be the living room. 

"A safe house," Meis explains, before Gueira can say anything. "I lucked out. No one saw me when the fire came, and I kept it hidden. But I knew there would be a time that I couldn't hide it anymore. I found this place and set it up. Something tempoarary." Meis is quick and to the point, and Gueira feels that hand slip away from his back -- and, for the first time since his rebirth, he feels a spot of cold for no more than a second or two. But the fire inside of him rushes to fix that, as if it were liquid.

"Hiding. Right." Gueira steps forward to look at the sparse safe house for a moment, a hand touching along the wall for a moment -- and his face scrunches up. "When did you find out that you were a Burnish?"

Meis is stepping into the kitchen, and, as he opens up one of the mounted doors, Gueira can see there is quite a bit of food there. Meis is prepared, Gueira can tell, and a pang strikes his chest. Meis had been prepping for a worst case scenario. "A little while ago. A month or so, maybe." 

"How... How can you keep this hidden?" Meis looks over at him as he tugs a pot out, along with a package of mashed potatoes.

"It's not too hard -- "

"No. Why would you keep this hidden?" Gueira corrects himself, and Meis stops in his tracks. Gueira can see him thinking. He can practically see the fire inside of him start to burn a little brighter at the question. Gueira walks forward, and his hand alights upon Meis's wrist, wrapping around it. 

"I've been alone." It is quiet, as he speaks. Had Gueira stayed where he was, he would not have heard it. "I don't know of any other Burnish. They've all been hiding, I guess." Meis lets out a soft breath at that, meeting Gueira's eyes. 

"You're not alone." Gueira's voice, unlike Meis, is firm. Loud, even. "None of us are. We have the fire inside of us. It connects us together." Gueira's eyes look into Meis's, and he notices how close the other man is. He can smell the ash from the fire on his long hair. He can feel the flames inside of him reacting to Meis's, and he can practically see Meis's own reflected in his eyes. 

Then -- there's a smile, that twists up the corner of Meis's lips. He sets the pot down and turns to Gueira. "I had hoped you would be one too," Meis replies, those eyes never leaving Gueira's. "A Burnish. You have always been like a fire. Like an inferno."

Gueira can feel Meis's breath, intermingling with his own. They're close. Closer than Gueira had been with anyone in the past. He finds he doesn't mind it at all. Because despite the fact that they're both covered in the smell of ash and fire, Gueira can smell Meis himself beneath it. The smell of (insert smell here). The only smell he wanted, after he was reborn as the building burned down behind him, not even an hour ago. "Then be the inferno with me, Meis," Gueira replies. "We don't need to be afraid of them. Burning Rescue. Freeze Force. Kray Industries. We'll burn it all to the ground. Burn it to ashes." His hand grips onto Meis's wrist a bit tighter, and he steps in once more -- and their bodies connect. Meis is pinned to the countertop behind him, though he doesn't seem to be bothered at all. The fire lurches inside of Gueira, filling him up inside. "The Burnish shouldn't be hiding. They should be the ones hiding from us." 

Meis lets out a small chuckle to himself, and his free hand reaches out to touch Gueira's cheek for a moment. "We don't have to be alone any longer," he replies. "Never again. We'll find them. We'll find a home for them. And us?" That smile tugs up a bit more. "We'll burn anyone who gets in our way." A pause, and the smile slowly twists into a smirk. "It's time for us to get mad." 

With that, Meis pushes his face down and claims Gueira's lips with his own. And, for a single moment, it feels as if time itself melts away. The feeling of Meis's lips on his, the fire that surges up from Gueira's gut, the heat that he feels coming from Meis himself. Gueira presses his body in closer, his other hand moving to touch at Meis's side as the kiss deepens. 

It takes a moment for Gueira to realize that the heat that's been building inside of him is no longer inside of him. Meis has been encompassed by flames, and Gueira realizes that he too is on fire. 

It feels right.


End file.
